ECB policy and Eurozone fragility: Was De Grauwe right?

Saka, O. ORCID: 0000-0002-1822-1309, Fuertes, A-M. ORCID: 0000-0001-6468-9845 & Kalotychou, E. (2015). ECB policy and Eurozone fragility: Was De Grauwe right?. Journal of International Money and Finance, 54, pp. 168-185. doi: 10.1016/j.jimonfin.2015.03.002

Abstract

Paul De Grauwe's Eurozone fragility hypothesis states that sovereign debt markets in a monetary union without a lender-of-last-resort are vulnerable to self-fulfilling dynamics fuelled by pessimistic investor sentiment that can trigger default. We test this contention by applying an eclectic methodology to a two-year window around Mario Draghi's “whatever-it-takes” pledge that can be understood as the implicit announcement of the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program. A principal components analysis reveals that the perceived commonality in default risk among peripheral and core Eurozone sovereigns increased after the announcement. An event study reveals significant pre-announcement news transmission from Spain to Italy, France, Belgium and Austria that clearly dissipates post-announcement. Country-specific regressions of CDS spreads on systematic risk factors reveal frequent days of large adverse shocks affecting simultaneously those five Eurozone countries, but only during the pre-announcement period. Altogether these findings support the fragility hypothesis and endorse the OMT program.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2015, Elsevier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Publisher Keywords:	Sovereign debt; Eurozone fragility; Self-fulfilling dynamics; European Central Bank; Outright Monetary Transactions
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HG Finance J Political Science > JZ International relations
Departments:	Bayes Business School > Finance